Boxing: Half-million-dollar fight dangled in front of Edwin Rodriguez

Sunday

Nov 4, 2012 at 6:00 AM

Bud Barth Boxing

For a few hours on Friday, Worcester super middleweight Edwin “La Bomba” Rodriguez was nearly bumped into a whole new tax bracket.

As it turned out, the undefeated USBA champion (22-0-0, 15 knockouts) was spared having to make a tortuous decision — whether to accept a fight worth almost half a million dollars, but risk suffering his first pro defeat against one of the best pound-for-pound fighters out there, which would have set back his world championship quest by about a year.

The opportunity that was dangled briefly in front of Rodriguez and his manager, Larry Army Jr., was a nontitle bout against Kazakhstan-born Gennady Golovkin (24-0-0, 21 KOs), a hands-of-stone middleweight billed as the best-kept secret in boxing, in an HBO main event at Madison Square Garden on Jan. 19.

Rodriguez’s share of the purse reportedly was to be close to $500,000, with another quarter-million or so in training expenses. That would have been more than twice his previous largest payday.

But, in the end, Golovkin’s people — especially his promoter, K2 Promotions, run by heavyweight champion brethren Wladimir and Vitaly Klitschko — appear to have settled instead on fighting Rodriguez’s DiBella Promotions stablemate, Thomas Oosthuizen of South Africa (20-0-1, 13), also a super middleweight.

Rodriguez isn’t totally out of the picture, Army said, but “it looks like the reality” is that “La Bomba” will end up fighting a still-to-be-determined opponent — probably a top-10 foe — in the televised co-feature of the Golovkin-Oosthuizen card at MSG on Jan. 19.

Golovkin, the WBA and IBO middleweight champion, will move up to 168 pounds against Oosthuizen, just as he would have against Rodriguez.

Oosthuizen, because of his lower visibility, will be paid considerably less than what was offered to Rodriguez, who is not only the USBA champion and has more TV exposure, but also is ranked No. 3 in the world by both the WBC and the IBF.

Oosthuizen, who holds the flimsy IBO belt at 168 pounds and is ranked 6th by the WBC and 4th by the IBF, has fought only three times in the U.S., and mostly against opposition not as stiff as Rodriguez’s.

Army admitted that a fight against the 30-year-old Golovkin would have been “extremely risky from our standpoint.” Golovkin has knocked out his last 11 opponents — 10 of them in five rounds or less — and claims to have lost only once in more than 370 pro and amateur fights, that being to Russia’s Gaydardek Gaydarbekov in the gold-medal final at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

It’s worth checking this guy out on YouTube.com. He has forearms like Popeye, packs devastating power in even his short punches, and left Kassim “The Dream” Ouma’s face looking like a scary Halloween mask after a 10th-round TKO in 2011.

Part of Golovkin’s anonymity stems from the fact that he fought almost exclusively in Germany as a pro. He didn’t make his American debut until his most recent fight, a fifth-round TKO of Grezegorz Proska (28-2) on Sept. 1 in Verona, N.Y., televised by HBO.

It appears that Team Rodriguez won’t have to wrestle with that difficult decision about whether to fight Golovkin, although Army said his fighter “is still in the discussion.” But the idea of paying Oosthuizen half of what Rodriguez would have gotten sounds pretty good to K2.

“On the one hand, I think it was a fight that Edwin could win,” Army said. “But the amount of money that we were talking would have certainly compensated us for the risk involved.

“Edwin’s very disappointed because he wanted the fight. But to me, honestly, if not this, something else. Something always comes up, and we’re in a great position.”

Super middleweight title doors are indeed opening up in the WBC, IBF and WBA, where Rodriguez is ranked No. 8.

First of all, the IBF has ordered Carl Froch to defend that title against second-ranked Adonis Stevenson by February. Froch is expected to defy the order in favor of a megabout against either Andre Ward or Bute, which would result in Froch being stripped of that belt.

The WBA, meanwhile, has ordered Ward, the WBA/WBC Super champ, to fight the winner of the Dec. 12 WBA “regular” title bout between Mikkel Kessler and Brian Magee. If Ward refuses, he gets stripped by the WBA. If he accepts, the WBC will strip him of that belt for accommodating a rival organization.

That adds up to three possible world title chances for Rodriguez fairly early in 2013.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Edwin’s megafight is just around the corner,” Army said. “It may be in January — it looks unlikely that he’ll fight the big-money fight that we’ve been looking for in January (against Golovkin), but we still may get an HBO date in January, which timing-wise could certainly help get us to the finish line in terms of getting one of those other three belts.”

The USA Boxing New England Championships began last night in Portland, Maine, with at least nine Worcester fighters in the competition.

The most intriguing bout, in the 132-pound open division, pitted a pair of city fighters against each other last night — Junior Olympics 15-16-year-old champion Jamaine Ortiz of the Boys & Girls Club of Worcester, trained by Carlos Garcia, against Rance Andino of Worcester’s Camp Get Right, trained by Kendrick Ball.

Actually, Garcia has an interest in both combatants. He not only trained Adino’s father, but he used to fight and train alongside Adino’s grandfather, Luis Falu. For that matter, Garcia got Ball started in the fight game, too, a long time ago.

“God bless the fight,” Garcia said.

It’s a similar setup for the super heavyweight final, scheduled for Nov. 24. That will be Worcester’s 223-pound Owen Minor, now a Ball disciple at Camp Get Right, against 208-pound Demek Elmonds, trained by Garcia at the BGCW.

Minor, who went all the way to the final four of the National Golden Gloves in May before losing, has set his sights on the USA Boxing title as compensation. Rodriguez is the only Worcester fighter ever to win that event, doing it as a middleweight in 2006.

Garcia, of course, also trained Minor, and so that battle with Elmonds will also be a taffy pull of emotions for the veteran boxing coach and trainer.

“The love that I’ve got for Owen is bigger than anything,” Garcia said. “I want my guy now (Elmonds) to do the best he can, I don’t want to let my guy down, you know what I mean? I wish both guys could win. This happened once before and my heart cried (for the loser).

“It’s going to be real interesting. What can I say? I have to pull for my guy in my corner and Kendrick has to pull for his guy, but in the end, we’re still family, no matter what. Love is separate from competition.”

Other Camp Get Right boxers fighting in Portland are Khiary Gray-Pitts, who is taking on Jason Quick of Portland, 165-pound open division; Brandon Brouillard, 152-pound sub-novice; and three women — Allie Lavigne of Sterling, 132-pound open; Deanna Supneor, 141-pound novice; and Adyis Lima, 118- or 125-pound novice.

Bud Barth can be contacted at hbarth@telegram.com.

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